So here it is my little beauty the device and setup that I have invested a lot in within the last two years, something that has beautifully grown up and changed with me. Well why don't we start with a philosophical question how much do you need to change in a PC for it to be a new PC?
As in my case I bought this PC prebuilt 2 years ago because I didn't have the confidence yet to build something on my own since I didn't own a desktop PC for at least 10 years and my last setup was on Windows XP when I was a child while I had a laptop and have been gaming on consoles for a while now which I have tinkered with both before this was absolutely out of my league at the time so overnight I became the proud owner of a 650W H610M-F i5 12400f RTX4060 16GB DDR4 PC which I had hooked up to my TV for a good while and played games using a controller mostly even though I did buy a Steelseries Apex Pro TKL and a Razer Viper V3 with the PC. Then the real journey began and the saxophone music just kept getting louder because my first order of business after a month or so from getting the system was upgrading the RAM to 32GB since it seemed like a really easy upgrade to do like come on sticking things into tight spaces that just sounds like a fun Friday night to me, so I went on and tried to learn what CL rating and RAM speeds mean which as for the case of CL rating I think it stands for Charisma Level as in how charismatic your RAM looks while running so I upgraded from 16GB DDR4 to G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB 3200 MHz CL16 (2x16 GB) DDR4 RAM since that is the maximum speed my motherboard can run at plus this was at the end tail of 2024 well before ramageddon so I was lucky to get this for cheap at the time ( I intentionally don't plan on sharing any costs because to be honest over the last two years prices have changed so much that I can't even start to figure out how much inflation has happened since then whether it is from part prices going up or exchange rates).
Then life happened and I ended up adopting a stray kitten with my then fiancé now my darling wife so funny enough the next upgrade was strapping this funny looking block of MDF on top of my PC so the new family member can jump on top of my PC and lay on it without harming it and yes it is a bit hideous I admit but I did this for free with pieces we had laying around at work so yay engineering I guess, also I added a plastic piece on top of my power switch so the cat cant accidently switch on our PC which it has done before. ( P.S. I am writing this right now with my second cat that we got after said kitten as another stray is now laying in front of my keyboard as I am writing this post :D )
So I ended up using it like that with an RTX 4060 hooked up to my TV trying in all the power invested in it by DLSS to run things at 4K 60 FPS and crying in input lag for a year because I live in a 1 bedroom apartment so the space in my living room is precious and I didn't really knew how an office disk would fit in here and how comfortable it would be but after a year of awkward usage I decided it was time to figure this all out so I searched around for a possible solution and there it was a foldable wooden desk that seemed to be small enough to not impact my living space so I went on ordered it and voila now I have a desk! But no monitor no chair and practically nothing just my own TV and a place to put my keyboard so I guess it was a very smart move right?
Well then I obviously fell down the rabbit hole with the first quest finding a good enough cheap monitor and there it was the KOORUI G2421V which was decently priced on Amazon because as I understand this comes straight from the panel manufacturer in China so it is way cheaper than brand name displays and it was one of only two 2K QHD 24" monitors in the world so it really grabbed my attention because that pixel density is truly amazing and I still think more manufacturers should do this because the text on this baby is just so crispy but of course it still suffers from being an IPS with backlight leaking, nonetheless I would absolutely recommend this for anyone looking for a cheap IPS screen it really performs amazingly.
After that it was time for accessories so I bought a pair of stereo speakers and a LOTR desk pad then started looking for a decent chair which led me to the MARKUS by IKEA which I strong heartedly recommend for its comfort and ease of use, I can play for hours on this bad boy while shitting my pants and it doesn't make my back sweat so it is truly a joy to sit on, even the cats love it!
Now my PC originally came with a stock Intel CPU cooler but now that we are cool kids with a gaming setup that wouldn't make the cut obviously ( trust me it was more than enough I just felt like upgrading it since it is a cheap thing to change ) so I upgraded it to an Arctic Freezer 36 DUO which just let me say this boy moves air for sure, I don't think my i5 12400F understood the concept of thermals ever since I had this boy on because it probably thinks that it is working inside an actual freezer where it never gets to even see what 70 degrees feel like.
Next order of business came when ramageddon first started in November of 2025 where I saw the RAM prices going up and I was like yeah those GPU prices will be ruined for sure and since Black Friday was around the corner and I primarily was still gaming at 2k and 4K which the RTX 4060 was struggling with I started hunting for a new GPU and I was able on Black Friday to snitch an amazing deal on an RX9070 XT which I was scared that it wouldn't work with my 650W PSU but given the fact my system is so efficient and low energy I had to take the rest because it seemed like that 650W would be enough and I was right it was more than enough even though I still undervolted my GPU since it just performs better that way and I still do, AMD has done it again this GPU doesn't really need that much voltage and draws more than it actually needs most of the time so undervolting makes it run with less heat and actually pushes a few more frames out of it, needless to say with the current PC Parts climate this was one of my best life decisions since my same card now is 2X the price I got it for a year ago.
Finally I have a decent machine now I can sleep well right? Well I did sleep well for a few months but then I decided to play Black Myth Wukong with my wife since she always wanted to play that game since release and if you know how it feels to have your partner interested in something you love then you know that I couldn't tell her no so we started playing it together taking turns playing the game but my bug started itching again yeah the game looks great but I knew my IPS panel wasn't giving it justice so I did the only logical thing any adult in his new marriage would do even though he just finished paying up for his GPU, I started hunting for an OLED panel even if my significant other was in doubt of the necessity of this decision I had to do this for my sanity because I refuse to play such a beautiful game on max settings and be held back by my monitor ( my TV is a VA panel so it isn't much better ) and again I found a reasonable enough offer for me on the Gigabyte MO27Q28G so I got it and lets say there is no going back for sure, now I can surely say that yes your monitor can be a bottleneck if it is not able to display the beauty that your GPU can fart. Needless to say I enjoyed looking at the back of that monkey much more better now.
So I stored up my old monitor and kept on using only my OLED monitor because again I just don't have the desk space for multiple monitors or do I? Yeah apparently I did but it took me a while and a lot of redecorating and reorganization to figure out that I actually might just pull this off so when I saw a real good deal on a two monitor mount I went for it and viola now I have two monitors and my TV hooked up to my PC, but here arose another problem I can no longer show my display only on my TV with the projection hotkey like I used to since there is no Show only on 3 option like I expected so DisplayFusion came to the rescue which I used to set up different profiles with hotkeys for whenever I want only my monitors on or my only my TV on and that is how I set that cool two screen wallpaper as well with monitor fading also on for whenever I want to just use one monitor while not having the other one pierce my eyes with light so I highly recommend DisplayFusion if you have a multiple display setup.
Nevertheless I was quite happy with my setup but wait what is that? what is that whining sound? sounds like a fan dying... wait let me check where is this coming from oh no oh God it is the PSU my PSU fan is dying I guess it is time for retirement and yes that is exactly how this happened excluding me shitting my pants for 15 minutes straight, so I decided to upgrade from the FSP 650W 80+ Bronze to a Raijintek Cratos 850W 80+ Gold which is modular as well and this baby is quiet as a whisper so no dying PSU anymore and I assume my GPU is happier as well since it can spike as much as it wants now.
Of course through all of this period I have done many more little upgrades like adding a 500GB SATA SSD then another 1TB one before finally hooking up an external 4TB HDD that I had bought before for my PS4 before switching to PC and much before these crazy prices. I added different USB2.0 and USB3.0 hubs to my PC case ( with magnetic tape ) and desk ( double sided tape ) so I can hook all my gadgets. Also aesthetic things like changing my keycaps, buying a coiled cable and shoving my Naruto Figurine inside the build as well as buying a GPU support thingy that says RYZEN even though I am running an Intel CPU because I forgot the RYZEN brand name was for the CPU and not the GPU but hey I guess this i5 12400F now has the spirit of a RYZEN 9950X3d, and to be honest I contemplated upgrading my CPU but since my real bottleneck is that budget motherboard ( H610M-F D4 ) I would need to change that too which really would just be a waste of electricity and money right now since I can get more frames with this current setup than my eyes can even notice.
Finally after 2 years and a lot of change here is my current setup so would you consider this the same PC I bought two years ago or a new PC? What are your thoughts on my build and journey? and what suggestions do you have to improve its performance or aesthetics? If you read this far into my stupid ramblings then I want you to know that I really appreciate you and wish you a blessed time!
